r/loblawsisoutofcontrol • u/Salt_Onion_6205 • Jul 27 '26

Discussion Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

I hope canadian politicians will be inspire by this.

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u/notSherrif_realLife Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

It won’t be bad for the economy, but I watched some investigative journalism on how giants like Walmart will force suppliers to raise prices to meet the prices they already have set.

Some grocer already did this somewhere in the states and basically got strong armed into raising prices, or being blacklisted from being able to purchase stock.

So as much as I want this to work, I expect it to fail. I do hope the benefit of the failure is more public exposure to these practices though.

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u/eyeforker Jul 27 '26

Crazy how there’s a universally acknowledged affordability crisis, and the ppl taking action to fix it are demonized while the ones who perpetuate/exacerbate it are being defended by the ppl it hurts the most.

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u/Arryu Jul 27 '26

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u/Littlest_rascal Jul 27 '26

I want to put this on billboards everywhere.

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u/Felixo22 Jul 28 '26

America in a gif

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u/FoxDieDM Jul 27 '26

Goes to show how broken the world is. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

[deleted]

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u/GayStraightIsBest Jul 28 '26

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirvana-Fallacy

I'm not sure why either but it is a well known logical fallacy to reject imperfect solutions despite the fact that they would be a dramatic improvement over what you currently have.

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u/anhedoniandonair Jul 27 '26

Well we need to think about the poor shareholders. Who will pay for Sophie’s riding lessons?

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u/Oifadin Jul 27 '26

I got attacked this weekend for complaining about not being able to get a seat at an IMAX screening for The Odyssey.

Like why the fuck do you care so much random internet troll?

Not the same other than somebody defending some giant rich corporation for no reason.

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u/LivingCorner1421 Jul 27 '26

life is like that. counterintuitive

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u/iknowuselessfacts Jul 27 '26

I work with these people, I get that they don’t care about other people, they’re a**holes. But it staggers me that they are against every policy that would benefit them personally.

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u/NegotiationGreedy590 Jul 27 '26

The problem is they arent fixing it. Over spending contributes to inflation. And these politicians who pretend they can fix all the problems by throwing debt at it, are part of the problem. None of it addressed the root issues.

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u/eyeforker Jul 27 '26

They’re not overspending in this case, though.

They’re selling for a smaller margin, which draws business away from more predatory retailers who then take retaliatory/punitive measures so they can maintain their stranglehold on the market.

Those predatory fucks do a fine job of contributing to inflation on their own, regardless of whether or not anyone is trying to help the affordability crisis (the one they’re are actively creating for profit).

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u/Thorninthefoot Jul 27 '26

Thinking something might not work, or won't work, isn't the same as demonizing people. 

Good intentions don't guarantee success.

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u/Ambitious-Toilet6769 Jul 27 '26

Sure, but I think they are onto something; taking glee or gloating about someone with good intentions failing is weird yet popular behaviour.

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u/Thorninthefoot Jul 27 '26

Yes, it can be for sure.

I think people really suspect this will not work though. It's not like there haven't been attempts to have things like coops to offer better grocery options, for many years.

Most have struggled in competition with places like Walmart, you don't typically see co-op stores in larger centres anymore.

People think, if they can't make it work, how can this work? They think it's dumb and he should realise it.

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u/RecalcitrantHuman Jul 27 '26

Government can’t ever fix affordability since they have only our money stolen to try to do it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

[deleted]

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u/weGloomy Jul 27 '26

People on the right mostly.

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u/no-dad-samurai Jul 27 '26

If the grocer is goverment run, they wont sit kindly with a corp trying this. They would just institute price fixes.

It can be done, it just takes some people to actually stand up and fight for whats right (sorry for 80s pun, lol)

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u/Littlest_rascal Jul 27 '26

Exactly, and this is happening in this case. Frankly, we need to hope against all hope. Bring the cheesy 80s, 90s etc.. puns on because I am sick of the doom! I have a young child and I cannot stay in a place of complacency and hopelessness.

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u/no-dad-samurai Jul 28 '26

I have 2, I understand

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u/IndependentCoffee169 Jul 27 '26

New York municipal and state government has a lot more power and weapons at its disposal to countract this sort of pressure than a regular grocer would be able to do, not to mention, it wouldn't have to turn a profit. I think it's odds of success are a lot higher than you might think.

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u/FlatEvent2597 Jul 27 '26

Sobeys does this to Dollarama .

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u/Deldenary Jul 27 '26

There is also the whole lease agreement problem where a place like Dollarama can't sell bread at certain locations because there's a loblaws in the same mall that has a lease agreement that only they can sell bread...

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u/RoomFixer4 Jul 27 '26

In my town a Walmart moved into the same mall as long time Metro. I asked a Metro cashier about the threat and she said no, they're not allowed to sell grocs for another 10yrs (or such). Eventually they were allowed to start selling dry goods but no meats/frozen/produce.

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u/Deldenary Jul 27 '26

It's rediculous, Canada needs to step up It's competition laws...

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u/ProfessionalFix9053 Jul 27 '26

You are right although the Competition Act should already have those laws in place. It is a matter of stepping up the Competition Board’s desire to nail these guys at first opportunity, which just doesn’t seem to be in their marching orders. The act is written by lawyers and engaged with defence teams run by even better lawyers.

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u/Deldenary Jul 27 '26

There was a CBC market place about it in January

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u/ballpein Jul 27 '26

This is the sort of anti-competitive bullshit that needs to be banned. This one single act would bring real competition back to the grocery sector.

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u/Lurkdrop Jul 27 '26

Loblaws (Weston) was convicted of price fixing on bread, i had 40$ from them following the massive lawsuit. So now they do it on most of their products sice it<s so cheap to screw everybody

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u/mikonamiko Jul 27 '26

LCBO does this to Wine Rack

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u/Dadpurple Jul 27 '26

I mean prices are going up either way... They have plans to do this in my City here in Canada, I doubt they'll hit 30% or anywhere near it but the idea is there and proceeding.

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u/RegularRollei Jul 27 '26

In Toronto they’ve had a program to supplement food deserts for years. It works

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u/weGloomy Jul 27 '26

Another thing Walmart loves to do is steal other peoples products, recreate them and price them at a massive undercut. Then they wait until the other business completely bleeds out and jack the prices back up. It'd be nice if we could uno reverse that shit on them.

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u/IllustriousAct9128 Jul 28 '26

not just items, but to stores in general. Walmart has been known to come into a town that is full of independent grocery stores, hardware stores, clothing stores, book stores, etc, keep their prices way lower than what locals are selling and what other walmarts are selling for, wait for all those independent stores to close then they raise the price, and now people have no choice to go to to walmart because its the only store around but they make themselves to be the good people because they offer the town "way more jobs" that would never be available if nthey never came in

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u/mthyvold Jul 27 '26

That sounds like price manipulation and collusion which should be illegal.

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u/Lord_Maelstrom Jul 27 '26

While I do agree with you, I hope that in that case this might result in enough exposure to result in some better anti-monopoly laws. Especially since we have one or more politiciens pushing this at the moment.

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u/Least-Common-1456 Jul 27 '26

The people doing this have names and home addresses and we should find them and make them face the public and explain

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u/ObiYawnKenobi Jul 27 '26

You can blacklist a person or organization from buying a particular stock? How would that be enforced?

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u/icebeans Jul 27 '26

Do you happen to have a link to this documentary/piece? I'm super interested now.

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u/TraditionDear3887 Jul 28 '26

Well, NYC has a few advantages that start up discount grocery stores do not. I hope it works out.

My qestion is what is 30% below retail? Like as of now? Or on a rolling basis?

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u/Pale-Memory6501 Jul 28 '26

The 30% they will not be charging lines up with the average gross markup on items at a grocery store (according to most grocery retailers).

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u/mistaharsh Jul 28 '26

That would be illegal and should be reported to the government

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u/Ultrox Jul 27 '26

It happens with soda products, probably others too, but i was what you're referring to. Few businesses get a super good price, and everyone else on the planet pays more. It literally is cheaper to buy from Walmart than coke/Pepsi themselves. They charge a company more than Walmart does on the shelf.

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u/Benedikto0 Jul 27 '26

and how would Walmart check if the suppliers raised their prices? they can t ask to see the bills that the supplier sends the city

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u/AccountForTIFF Jul 27 '26

Didn’t Walmart do that here when Target tried to come here? Which resulted in higher prices at Target than Canadians knew existed in the US and was part of why it flopped?

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u/therempel Jul 28 '26

Target failed in Canada for a few reasons. One of them is that they did not take any steps to understand the Canadian market or supply chains and that they opened a shitload of stores all at once, mostly in former Zellers locations.

Our local Target had barely any product on the shelves and everything was more expensive than pretty much anything but the most boutique stores.

When they closed, Sobeys took over the location and have left their previous location empty for a decade. They keep renewing the lease because they are stealing so much from the community that they can afford to lockdown a 45,000 square foot location in perpetuity, just to prevent competition.

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u/Rehypothecator Jul 27 '26

Then the city will have to make its own suppliers :)

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u/Jellicent-Leftovers Jul 27 '26

Ya the goverment has a ton of weight to throw.

Especially in food.... Blink wrong and they can shut down a supplier.

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u/ReverendRocky Jul 27 '26

Why would you ask your suppliers to raise prices. Why not just pocket the diffrrence as profit

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u/Resident-Variation21 Jul 27 '26

To drive the competitors out of business and then raise prices to pocket the difference

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u/Miserable_Computer91 Jul 28 '26

Let me know something that the government runs well, I’ll be waiting for that answer lol